Clone commando
A clone commando, or Republic commando, are an elite clone soldier of the Grand Army of the Republic. Often working in groups of four, clone commandos are assigned to carry out covert operations too delicate for regular clone troopers. Covert infiltration, sabotage, demolition, and assassination are standard tasks for the clone commandos. When Order 66 was issued by Emperor Palpatine at the end of the Clone Wars, one commando unit, Ion Team, refused to fire on their commanding Jedi, Roan Shryne, for various reasons, and multiple other commandos deserted, thus showing that at least some commandos were independent. History Soon after the cloners of Kamino began their clone trooper project, Jango Fett, although he believed his clones would be the best soldiers in the galaxy, realized that situations would arise that regular infantry clones could not handle. He persuaded the Kaminoans to create a new class of Advanced Recon Commando, which he would personally train. The result was the Alpha-class Advanced Recon Commandos. The Kaminoans believed the Alpha ARCs would be just as rogue as the "failed" Null-class ARC troopers, so they proposed another idea. They requested a battalion of elite commandos be created from the regular clone trooper genome template. These clones would be more loyal and obedient than the ARC's but more independent to their more common brethren; this would allow them to handle more delicate missions that had a broad objective. The commandos could devise their own ways of completing it. The commandos would be placed into squads (nicknamed "pods") of four commandos each, in a reflection of the aiwha hunting pods native to the oceans of Kamino. Fett agreed to this proposal and requested that the commandos be trained by professional mercenaries Kal Skirata and Walon Vau (in addition to computerized "flash" training.) The cloners agreed with Fett, and soon Jango had gathered 75 Mandalorian soldiers and another 25 elite mercenaries from around the galaxy to form the Cuy'val Dar, or "those who no longer exist". Under the direction of Fett, the training sergeants gave the commandos the most elite training available second only to ARC training. The Kaminoans soon found they had small, operational squads, each capable of carrying out self-contained or campaign-augmenting missions, as well as being highly trained and fiercely cohesive, yet capable of carrying out a variety of mission profiles. When the Clone Wars started with the Battle of Geonosis, the commandos were some of the first units dropped in, disrupting droid factories and assassinating Geonosian lieutenant Sun Fac. However, due to the Jedi inexperience with leading an army, many commandos died—50 percent of them having died in the first year of the war—as many were used as infantry. Over the course of the Clone Wars, the commandos were set to work in various other flash-points across the galaxy, wreaking havoc on the Separatist forces. Throughout the Clone Wars, there were many different opinions regarding the commandos. Some clones tended to respect the commandos for their superb training and combat skills while other clones, especially the infantry-based units that fought in the larger battles of the war, believed that the commando's reputation was grossly exaggerated. As the Clone Wars dragged on, the emergence of the Mandalorian Protectors only added to the causes behind the growing number of casualties among the Grand Army of the Republic. For this reason, and the fact that an Advanced Recon Commando went rogue, because of his Mandalorian heritage in the first place, the clones began to despise anything Mandalorian, especially clones who still embraced the Mandalorian culture. This can be seen when the 2nd Airborne Company, after being dealt high casualties by the Mandalorian Protectors, showed their obvious contempt for Omega Squad, a unit of clone commandos that were deeply devoted to their Mandalorian roots. Ultimately, the loyalty of the standard-issued clones fell to the Galactic Republic without question, and since the Mandalorians had declared war for the Confederacy of Independent Systems, than heritage or no heritage, Mandalorians were now viewed by the clones as enemies of the Republic. And to a clone trooper - all enemies of the Republic were to be eliminated. The ARC troopers, being the best and most elite unit within the Grand Army of the Republic, were the clones that were held in a higher regard than the Clone Commandos. Even the commandos acknowledged the superiority of the ARC troopers, Darman having stated that the ARC troopers were about the closest thing on the Republic's side that he feared and Atin having complimented the ARC troopers for being "pretty well raw Jango." The standard clone troopers are useful in a group, while the ARC troopers, though they occasionally worked in squads as well, are very capable on their own. The commandos are trained to battle in a four-men squad, but they were described as "formidable" by the Kaminoans, who claimed that "they are the best of the best that the Republic has to offer and were given the best training available, superior to their more common brethren." However, this is in reference the commandos in comparison to the regular clones and is based on the Kaminoans' biased opinion, for they still perceived the ARC troopers as failed experiments which bred impulsive and irrational clones. Overall, the clone commandos are second best in the Grand Army, superior to regular clones and more independent-minded, but less up-to-par and more obedient than the ARC troopers. With the initiation of the clone commando experiment, approximately 100 instructors (of which 75 were Mandalorians) were chosen by Jango Fett himself. Each instructor trained a group of clones, of 104 per group, with each group separating into multiple squads (4 commandos). Some of these clones didn't survive the training. Clone Commando Training Sergeant Kal Skirata personally shot and killed one clone with his own rifle. When the conclusion of the Clone Wars resulted in the decimation of the Jedi Order and the rise of the Galactic Empire, the Republic Commandos would, in a way, survive to see the rise of the New Order. As their clone trooper variants were renamed as Imperial stormtroopers, so too were the commandos renamed as Imperial Commandos. Amongst the first of the Empire's clone commandos were the remaining members of the Republic's Delta Squad and Omega Squad, respectively. One of their first duties to perform in service of the Empire, as stated by Darman of Omega Squad, was oversee the elite training program for new clones (mostly those created from Spaarti technology), including those of the 501st Legion.Allmost all replacements for commandos are centax clones making commandos some what less efficent. Training Clone commandos are trained by a group of elite training sergeants chosen by Jango Fett. These men and women, known as the Cuy'val Dar ''train the commandos in a variety of tactics, and often the trainers were a fatherly figure for the fatherless clones. However, some, like Walon Vau, opted to toughen up their soldiers and were ruthless towards them,Vau's commandos have the least amout of casulties due to the training. Clone commandos are trained in live-fire exercises, giving them a sense of the reality of combat long before normal clone troopers. Anti-terrorist training is conducted in a building nicknamed the Killing House. Though many commandos die during these exercises, the rest learned rapidly, allowing them to become better soldiers. However, the repercussions of their squadmates' deaths are felt by any commando who lost a ''vod—a brother. Clone commandos also experience near-death torture to train them in resisting interrogation, and many clones are left mentally scarred from it.